If you don't like dirty nappies, look away now!

Warning: This post contains detailed "nappy content(s)" (sic).

A few weeks ago Hayley went to get her hair done and left Oliver with me for a few hours. In this time I was also expecting a TV engineer who was coming to upgrade our satellite TV and also another delivery. Hayley left the two of us a picture of calm. Within two hours everyting had gone to rats! Oliver, perhaps objecting to these intruders into our home, cried for virtually the whole morning: an unprecendented act on his part.

Today Hayley went to a sale of baby clothes with her friend Dawn. During this time Oliver was perfectly happy, right up to the point where he needed a nappy change. He started to cry and so I picked him up to take him upstairs and change him. I realised that holding him under his bottom may squeeze out the offending substance, so I popped him onto my shoulder and simply suported his feet.

Then, as I walked up the stairs, I felt that his feet were wet. I looked down to see my hand covered in poo. I diverted to the bathroom where I washed my hand (still with Oliver on my shoulder) and headed off to the nursery. On arriving in the nursery I put him on his changing table and looked down at my trousers. There were three large orangey brown, runny patches of poo on them. By this point I realised I was in trouble (though for some reason I was still laughing). Clearly he was going to need a complete change of clothes. And as there was another patch of brown on my shirt, so was I!

I removed his trouswers which turned out to have a substamntial amount of excrement in them. But there was worse to come. It had leaked out onto all his clothes and what was leaking out smelled truly appalling. Involuntarily I wretched at the smell: something that has never happened to me before. I even remember in the first few days thinking how sweet and yeasty his poo smelled: a bit like warm bread! But now I badly wanted to open the window. However, it was a few degrees above freezing outside and I didn't want him to get cold.

Forgive me but I am going to have to describe the poo. You may want to skip to the next paragraph. It was a mixture of regular runny orangey brown poo with some awful greyish sticky gooey poo mixed in. The smell was terrible and if I could have left him safely on the changing table to go 15 feet to the cupbaord where I have nose clips for swimming, I would have done so and put one on.

I persevered and eventually got him cleaned up thanks to a large number of wet wipes, then stripped off myself and collected up our collective soiled clothes. Throughout the whole of course proceedings Oliver was quiet and happy, even when I had to clean his bare back with cold wet-wipes.

When Hayley arrived home fifteen minutes later I recounted the tale. She rocked with laughter, doubling up on the sofa, almost crying. She then took great pleasure in ringing Dawn and relaying the story to her!

Now, I know that he is not waiting for his Mum to go out before doing this sort of thing, so I am left with the unavoidable truth: that this is the sort of horror that Hayley has to deal with on a regular basis!

There have been times when giving up work and looking after Oliver has seemed attractive to me. Today was not one of them.